I tell myself that there are certain things I won’t endure, where I’ll overcome my fear of death and end it if they seem imminent. If my past ever catches up with me, for example. Or nuclear war. Or degenerative illness. Points where it seems outright stupid not to kill myself, to spare myself pointless suffering.
But what’s troubling is that my life is already at the point where on balance, it would probably be better for me if I stopped existing. I’m in near-constant discomfort. The pain isn’t agonizing or anything, but it is enough to make sleep difficult. I’m chronically depressed, and I feel tired nearly all of the time. The only things I get some enjoyment from are addictive/unhealthy habits that bring me more pain afterwards, so they’re not worth it. I have nothing positive in my life. My only social contacts are my parents, who I see maybe twice a month.
And it only gets worse, year on year. New parts of my body start breaking down, new things start to hurt, and I move further away from the only time in my life I was happy.
And it’s not that I want to die, emotionally speaking, at least most of the time. My fear of death is massive. And morally, the pain caused to my family by my suicide would probably outweigh my current suffering.
But I worry that I’ll just continue to let things get worse and worse, year after year. There’ll never be a sudden event that gives me a clear enough signal to end it. The suffering will just get greater and greater, and I’ll become more and more miserable, and just get used to that. And it’ll all be for nothing.
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Same my man, same for me. Except I’m further along the progression.
1- When you have chronic fatigue, which is what I suffer from, you take the path of least resistance- meaning you exist day to day, and all you do is get through the day/week/etc. Hell- even planning for a sui- takes too much effort.
2- You have to WANT to kill yourself, and right now, you don’t. Even thought you know LOGICALLY it’s probably best. I feel the same way. Logically, it makes sense to have ended it all years earlier, or now, since I don’t really see a “rainbow at the end of the tunnel.”
3- But actually ending it all is not as easy as it sounds. What if’s pop into my head. “What if I actually get healthier or less depressed or actually have some good, fun, happy times?” “What if I screw up the sui-?” All good reasons we have to NOT do it right now, today, or tomorrow.
Anyway, it goes back to #2- you have to really WANT to end it, and you don’t. “Shoulds” do not factor into our feelings and desires. “Shoulds” are logical and we are not logical creatures.
To answer the question in your title- BAD. Things have to get much much worse for you to finally get fed up to the point where you’ll end it all.
That’s pretty bleak, if you’re correct. I want to be capable of being logical and sparing myself the worst kinds of suffering. I think I’m getting closer to really wanting to end it, but it’s just not consistent enough. When I think of taking that final step, it just seems terrifying.
Which means I should probably plan on sticking around for the time being. But the idea of trying to improve my life just fills me with so much hopelessness.
It’s a matter of being angry enough I think. I used to think I could quietly slip away, and I tried to construct every way someone might do that. That’s expensive and complicated. If I had those kind of resources, I could get out of this dead end state and I wouldn’t need to die.
It’s interesting to me I used the word need, because I guess that’s the point I’d have to be at. When the anger couldn’t be bottled anymore. There’s a pretty strong theory that suicide is just introverted homocide, and I think that’s the case with me. I just can’t get access to anyone who deserves to die more than me.
So far it’s like there are two of me. One fatalistic, wants to go. The other is holding the door, loves my dog, loves my wife. So long as the part of me holding the door can do it, I’ll be holding on.
I can’t see what the other part of me, the fatalistic part, is doing though. He might get creative. I try to keep it satiated with horror and true crime, but is it enough? I don’t know.
I don’t think I have that kind of anger in me. Not to do it violently anyway. If I’m going to do it, I want it to be as peaceful as possible.
This says it for me too. Life keeps getting worse, every year is so much worse than the one before because problems feed each other. Physical damage stops repairing itself, and thats when everything starts breaking down like a rickety bridge that can’t support its own weight as it rots.
“It gets better” may work for teenagers or even 20somethings, but once you pass your prime, it’s a law of nature: it gets worse. The problem is it happens slowly enough that we seem to adapt. There’s no such thing as a death of 1000 cuts in this scenario. I think it takes a pretty big traumatic event to act as the catalyst for suicide. Either that or a volatile mental state like you might get on certain psych meds, definitely with alcohol.
If you get a traumatic event while in a weakened mental state then bingo you win the suicide lottery. Especially if you have convenient means like a gun or a bridge.
I’ve been close to that threshold maybe 2 or 3 times, usually from a combination of alcohol, drugs and some catastrophic news on top of a depressed state. When you get locked into that state, all fears and logical arguments vanish and you’re running on pure blind instinct. I think that’s when it happens.
If that’s the case then I’m probably never getting there. Got the depressed state down obviously, and I’m sure catastrophic events will turn up eventually. But I don’t drink (or take drugs) regularly enough, and when I do it tends to just make me sleepy and lethargic rather than volatile.